


And there our paths diverged

by Prixin47



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 13:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21036914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prixin47/pseuds/Prixin47
Summary: When Icheb's experiment goes wrong, Captain Janeway is confronted with a version of her life she never thought possible.





	And there our paths diverged

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place between the events of "Natural Law" and "Homestead," approximately Stardate 54847.7.

“This is excellent work, Icheb,” Captain Janeway commented. She rubbed the back of her neck and looked up from the PADD he’d handed her, “I’ll admit I was skeptical, but I’m pleased to have been proven wrong.”

Skeptical was one word for it. When Icheb had shared his plan to enhance a probe with chroniton shielding and beam it directly into subspace to scan for temporal eddies, she’d thought the idea was ludicrous; but as she looked over the telemetry, the implications were making her dizzy. And this was only what he’d been able to get in 47 seconds before the probe had imploded from the force of the graviton sheer.

“With your permission, Captain,” replied Icheb with a gratified smile on his face, “I would like Lt. Torres’ help in modifying the shielding further. We would be able to get a much clearer picture of the temporal flux if we could keep the probe in one piece for a few minutes.”

“Permission granted,” said Janeway, impressed as ever by the young man’s confidence and curiosity.

“Thank you, Captain,” Icheb said, inclining his head and departing her ready room.

—

Several hours later, after reviewing the finer points of their trade agreement, Janeway arrived in Transporter Room two in her dress uniform, ready to beam down to the Zekarian home world to begin negotiations.

She stepped onto the transporter pad and turned to Crewman Sharr. “Energize,” she said.

When the glimmering lights of the transporter effect cleared her field of vision, she expected to be greeted by Chakotay and Tuvok, who had spent the morning meeting with the Zekari to prepare for the negotiations. Instead, she found herself back on the transporter pad.

But Sharr wasn’t at the controls. The room was empty.

_That’s odd._

She headed into the corridor reaching for her comm badge to call Lt. Torres. But before she could tap it, something barreled into her knees.

Looking down, she realized that it wasn’t something, but rather someone. A human child with long, dark hair and caramel skin. And this child had wrapped her arms around her waist and pummeled her with a hug.

“Mommy!” the child cried, looking up into her eyes with a huge, bright smile, “Daddy said you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning.”

Kathryn froze for a moment. Her first impulse was to call security and report an intruder onboard, but something stopped her. In this child’s face, she could see Phoebe’s impish grin, her mother’s questioning eyes, her own strong chin.

_This is my child._

_How is this my child?_

Improvising wildly, she said, “I managed to make it back a little early, sweetie. Where is your daddy?”

_Who is your daddy?_

“He’s on the bridge,” replied the child, “but Mommy, why are you wearing your dress uniform?”

“It’s a long story,” said Janeway. “Aren’t you supposed to be…?” she let her voice trail off just a little bit, hoping the girl would fill in the blanks.

“I know, I know, I’m late for botany with Neelix,” said the child defensively, “but Kes had some questions about my bioethics essay.”

_Kes?_

_Something is very wrong here._

“Well then, off you go. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, Mommy!” the child gave Janeway’s knees one more wild hug and before pelting down the corridor toward the airponics bay.

Janeway took a deep steadying breath and entered the turbolift.

“Main Bridge,” she said.

She was going to get to the bottom of this.

—

When the turbolift doors opened and she stepped out onto the bridge, Chakotay turned to look at her. His handsome eyes lit up.

“Katie? You’re back early.”

_Katie?_

But Tuvok already had a phaser on her. “Commander, Captain Janeway took a shuttle to her meeting with the Perai. No shuttle has docked with Voyager. Logic dictates that this individual is an impostor.”

_Oh Vulcan logic, such a double edged sword._

“Alright,” said Janeway, “I’ll come clean. I have absolutely no idea what’s happening here. I was beaming down for a trade negotiation with the Zekari, but the transport must have aborted because I rematerialized in transporter room two and now things are…not as I remember them.”

“The who?” asked Chakotay.

“The Zekari,” she responded, looking from Chakotay to Tuvok and then turning around to look at the rest of the bridge crew. “The species we made contact with a few days ago. They want to trade dilithium ore for replicator technology.”

“Katie, we’ve never encountered anyone called the Zekari,” said Chakotay. “You’re not making any sense. I think we need to get you to sickbay.”

Harry Kim approached with a tricorder and ran it over her. “My scans indicate that she is Captain Janeway," he said to Tuvok and Chakotay.

Tuvok nodded curtly, "I concur with Commander Chakotay. A visit to Sickbay would seem to be indicated.”

“I also concur,” Janeway responded, rubbing the back of her neck.

—

“There’s no doubt about it. She is Captain Janeway,” said the Doctor, pointing to the results of a genetic scan. “Right down to the last base pair sequence.”

“Then how do you explain what’s happening here?” asked Janeway.

“I can’t yet, but I do have a hypothesis,” replied the Doctor, “look here.” He gestured to a DNA sequence on the viewscreen. “Your genetics are identical to the last scan I took of Captain Janeway, but the epigenetic markers are different. What’s more, the engrammatic patterns in your brains vary substantially. You may be _a_ Captain Janeway, but you are not _our_ Captain Janeway.

“You may be a clone, or you could be from another dimension or, most likely, an alternate timeline. We’ll need to have Lt. Torres do further tests to determine exactly where you came from and how to send you back.”

“Seven of Nine might have a few ideas as well,” said Janeway, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Seven of who?” Chakotay asked.

“Seven of Nine,” Janeway replied, looking from Chakotay to the Doctor, whose blank, confused faces only escalated the surreality of this experience. “She’s a Borg drone who joined the crew three years ago.”

“Katie,” Chakotay said, “how about we go back to our quarters so you can rest while the Doctor and B’Elanna look through the results of your scans.”

_Our quarters?_

She was too tired to argue.

“Alright,” she said, “I could use a rest.”

—

In their quarters, which were beautifully decorated with hand-carved wooden furniture and draped with colorful textiles, Janeway sat down on the sofa and Chakotay brought her a cup of coffee.

“Thank you,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Here, let me help,” he said, standing and coming around behind her.

Before she knew it, his strong hands were kneading expertly along her shoulders and up her neck. She hadn’t let him touch her like this since their time together on New Earth, but she didn’t have the will to fight his comforting hands in this moment. He knew all the places where she carried tension and just what to do to release it. Soon, her muscles felt smooth and supple.

“Thank you, Chakotay,” she said, “that feels much better.”

The comm chirped, “Tuvok to Commander Chakotay.”

“Chakotay here.”

“Commander, I have just made contact with Captain Janeway on the Perai homeworld. She and Lt. Paris are returning to Voyager at maximum warp and should be here in less than two hours.”

“Understood, Tuvok. Chakotay out.”

“So,” asked Chakotay, “how are things on your side of the multiverse?”

She smiled. He could always make her smile, in any timeline. “Not bad,” she replied, “yours?”

“Well,” he said, “a mysterious double of my wife has just turned up on the ship, but other than that, we’re having a perfectly normal day.”

He took one look at her face and then said, “I take it that’s not how you remember things.”

She sighed and looked down at her hands. “No.”

After an awkward silence he said, “please send my condolences to your Chakotay.”

Kathryn felt his joke like someone had stabbed her in the guts.

“Oh, he’s doing just fine,” she said with only a hint of bitterness before brusquely changing the subject. “How about you fill me in on the ship’s status. Assuming I am from an alternate timeline, maybe we can identify where things split off.”

“How far back do you want to go?” he asked.

“Start with the Caretaker,” she said.

He talked her through their decision to destroy the Caretaker’s array, their fights with the Kazon, run ins with the Vidiians, communications with time-traveling Romulans, and that time they’d solved the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.

And then he got to New Earth.

“Almost two years after we first arrived in the Delta Quadrant, you and I were stranded on an M-Class planet in the Nekri cluster for about two months. We’d been bitten by a burrowing insect that lived there and contracted a virus that would kill us if we stopped breathing the planet’s atmosphere. The Doctor couldn’t find a cure, so we determined that the crew should set course for the Alpha Quadrant and leave us to live out our lives.

“I had been in love with you awhile by that point, but I’d kept my feelings to myself since we were in a command structure. Then all of a sudden, it looked like we were going to spend the rest of our lives alone together, so I took a risk. We were just beginning to explore what was possible between us when Voyager returned with a cure for the disease they’d retrieved from the Vidiians. And then we agreed that we had to put our feelings on hold for the foreseeable future for the good of the ship.”

“I remember all that,” she said.

“A few days after we came back to Voyager, we agreed to help negotiate a ceasefire between the Adrix and the Kriy. Adrix separatists crashed the negotiations and took me hostage. When we didn’t give in to their demands for weapons, they tortured me.”

He held out his left hand, which she saw was covered in deep scars and adorned with a simple silver wedding band. The tip of his smallest finger was missing.

“Oh Chakotay. I’m so sorry,” she said, taking his maimed hand in her own. “That’s awful.”

“They had a kind of scattering field we’d never seen before. It played hell with the sensors and stymied all of Voyager’s rescue attempts for almost a week.”

“How did we get you out?”

“You took a shuttle over and above Tuvok’s vociferous objections, walked three days through the Adrixian jungle tracking their movements the way I taught you, penetrated their camp, and singlehandedly took out twelve of them with a concussion grenade and a phaser rifle before shutting down their scattering field and beaming us to safety. We got together a couple of weeks later.”

He looked up at her with a huge, warm grin.

“Then you found out you were pregnant and asked me to marry you. Nobody was surprised. It turns out the crew had been running a betting pool to see how long it would take for us to become a couple.”

She couldn’t help but smile along with him. “The little girl I ran into in the hallway?”

“Our daughter, Xiomara Janeway.” He beamed with pride.

The comm chirped. “Torres to Chakotay.”

“Go ahead, B’Elanna.”

“I’ve finished my analysis of the Doctor’s scans. You and uh… the other Captain Janeway should come down to Engineering.”

“On our way.”

==

“So you’re telling me that the Captain is just… gone?!” demanded Chakotay.

“I beamed her down to your location,” said Crewman Sharr, who was trembling and tearing up. “I don’t understand what happened.”

Chakotay tapped his comm badge, “Chakotay to the bridge. Harry, I want systemwide sensor sweeps. If the Captain is out there, we’re going to find her.”

“Aye, sir,” replied Ensign Kim.

“Tuvok, see if you can find any evidence that someone intercepted the transport. Perhaps she’s been diverted to another location.”

“Aye, sir,” replied Mr. Tuvok.

He tapped his badge a second time, “Chakotay to Engineering, B’Elanna, get a crew up here to run a diagnostic on transporter room two.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Don’t worry, Sharr,” he said to the shaking crewman, whose cheeks were now wet with tears. “We’ll find her.”

==

“I’m detecting high levels of chronoton particles,” said B’Elanna, pointing to some patterns in the Captain’s bio readings. “And you’re just slightly out of phase with this space-time continuum. There’s no doubt about it, you’re from a different timeline.”

Just then, another Captain Janeway strode into Engineering. The other Janeway’s waist-length hair was braided in a long plait down her back. She wore a silver wedding band that matched Chakotay’s.

“Hello,” she said, smiling at Kathryn, “I’m Katie. It’s good to meet you.”

“Good to meet you, too,” said Kathryn, shaking her hand. “Does this seem as strange to you as it does to me?”

“Probably not quite as strange,” replied the other Janeway, “I’m still in familiar surroundings.”

She turned to B’Elanna, “what have you found?”

“I was just bringing Commander Chakotay and…,” she stopped and turned to Kathryn, “what should I call you? I can’t call you both Captain Janeway, that would be too confusing.”

Katie spoke up, “how about I’m Captain Janeway and she’s…” Katie turned to Kathryn.

“I’m not in command of this vessel, so my first name will do fine,” said Kathryn, her head hurting again. In her book, alternate universes belonged in the same category as time travel - to be avoided at all costs.

“Okay,” said B’Elanna, starting again. “I was just bringing Commander Chakotay and Kathryn up to speed. Although the Doctor’s scans show that you two are nearly identical, Kathryn is saturated with chroniton radiation ever so slightly out of phase with our space-time continuum. I can say pretty conclusively that she’s from another timeline. What remains to be seen is how she got here and how we can get her home.”

“Kathryn,” asked Katie, “how did you get here?”

“I was beaming down to join an away team for some trade negotiations,” she said.

“Hence the dress uniform,” Katie said.

“Hence the dress uniform,” Kathryn replied. “But when I rematerialized, I was still in transporter room two. Nobody was there. I went into the corridor and ran into Xiomara.”

“B’Elanna,” said Katie, “run a full diagnostic on transporter room two. Let’s see if there’s anything there that can tell us how this happened.”

“Aye Captain,” replied Lt. Torres, gathering some tools. “Carey, you’re with me.”

Torres and Carey left Engineering together.

“And Kathryn, I think you and I have some catching up to do,” said Katie. “Chakotay, are you good to return to the bridge?”

“Sure,” he said. He squeezed Katie’s hand, smiled at Kathryn and headed for the turbolift.

Once he had gone, Katie said, “how about we have a bite.”

“Sure,” she replied, and followed Katie to the turbolift.

But instead of taking them to the mess hall, Katie ordered the turbolift to Holodeck one.

“Computer, run Paris program theta 42,” she ordered.

“Program complete. Enter when ready,” said the computer.

The Janeways found themselves in the food court at Starfleet headquarters.

“Barnaby’s?” asked Kathryn.

“Where else?” said Katie.

Five minutes later, they were each devouring a massive bowl of hot noodle soup.

“Oh I love this place,” said Kathryn, “I had forgotten how much. When did you create this program?”

“Tom made it for Kes,” said Katie, “to show her his favorite spots on Earth. Turns out he’s quite a fan of Barnaby’s too.”

“I don’t know anyone who spent time at Starfleet Command or the Academy who isn’t a fan of Barnaby’s.”

Barnaby Kawaguchi was an infamous Starfleet Academy dropout who had decided he’d rather feed the Federation’s finest than fly with them, so he’d opened up a shop that quickly became the most popular spot for noodle soup in all of San Francisco. All of his dishes were named after famous anomalies discovered by Starfleet Captains. His restaurant had been her favorite place to take a study break.

“So,” said Kathryn, after she’d swallowed a big bite of Barnaby’s ‘inverse tachyon tofu,’ “Chakotay brought me up to speed on how we… I mean on how you got together. That was an incredibly brave thing you did.”

“Stupid brave,” said Katie with a smile, “but then sometimes love makes you do stupid things.”

“How…?” Kathryn asked, not quite sure how to finish the sentence.

“Wondering how I justified getting involved with my first officer?” Katie asked.

“Yes,” Kathryn replied.

“Then I take it you and Chakotay are not together in your timeline.”

“No.”

“I see,” said Katie. “So you were never together on New Earth.”

“We spent two months together on New Earth,” replied Kathryn, a little testily. “But nothing happened between us.”

“Nothing happened between us there either,” said Katie reassuringly. “He told me how he felt and we spent some time talking about it. There were a couple of nights we fell asleep holding each other, but I was still pretty reticent about the whole thing when Voyager returned for us. And then of course we agreed we had to put it all on hold and focus on getting Voyager home.”

“That’s how things unfolded in my timeline as well,” said Kathryn with relief. Then her eyes softened a little as she remembered what it had been like afterwards. “Those first few months back on the ship were awful. Every time I looked at him, I could see the longing in his eyes. I wanted to go to him but I couldn’t.”

“Months,” said Katie, her voice full of compassion. “I imagine that _was_ awful. The first night we were back aboard Voyager, I was unpacking and I found one of his paintings somehow mixed in with my things. I cried so hard I thought I’d never stop.”

“I remember,” said Kathryn.

“Then the Adrix took Chakotay hostage. Every couple of days they’d send me transmissions of him being tortured.

“The only way I was ever able to come to terms with Daddy and Justin’s deaths was knowing I’d done everything I could to save them. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t do the same for Chakotay. I realized that I’d rather die than lose him, which isn’t exactly how a Captain usually feels about her first officer.

“I realized then that I had no objectivity because I was in love with him. I couldn’t risk anyone else’s life by sending in a strike team to bring him home. So, I put Tuvok in charge of Voyager and went after him alone.

“After we got back, I refreshed myself on the Starfleet regulations that prohibit involvements between captains and members of their crew. It turns out they exist to _prevent_ feelings from developing, but sometimes it happens anyway. If it can happen to _Jean-Luc Picard_, it can happen to anyone. In the Alpha Quadrant, the protocol would have been to transfer one of us to another ship so we could either explore our relationship or get over it; but that wasn’t possible out here so - like with so many things - we did the best we could.”

Kathryn nodded with understanding. “In my timeline, we declined to help the Adrix and the Kriy negotiate their ceasefire. Tuvok intercepted transmissions from the separatists and we determined that the situation was too volatile. But I can understand how, with everything that happened on New Earth so fresh, almost losing him would have been a… clarifying experience.”

“And there our paths diverged,” said Katie.

Kathryn was silent for several minutes. She had so many questions and she had no idea where to begin.

_Does the crew take you less seriously because you got involved with a subordinate?_

_Are you happy?_

_What’s the sex like?_

But in the end, she asked the one question that mattered the most to her. “How do you handle it when he disagrees with your command decisions?”

“It’s not a Starfleet command structure,” Katie replied with a shrug. “We tried that at first, but it didn’t work to have one member of a partnership be subordinate. So now we run the ship as a married couple. I’ve made compromises I wouldn’t have made with any other first officer.”

_Running a Federation starship as a married couple? Whoever heard of such a thing?_

But Kathryn decided to take a less judgmental tack with her outside voice. “Like when?”

“About four years ago, we ended up on the edge of Borg space,” Katie began. “Our long range sensors detected a massive battle. Fifteen Borg cubes were demolished by whatever they were fighting.”

“Species 8472,” Kathryn interjected.

“Is that what they call themselves?” Katie asked.

“It’s what the Borg call them,” Kathryn replied.

“Do you use Borg designations often?” Katie asked warily.

“Sometimes,” she said. “We have several Borg onboard.”

Katie looked shocked.

“They’ve been severed from the Collective,” Kathryn clarified. “During that encounter, we rescued a human woman who had been assimilated as a young child. Then a few years later, we rescued some Borg children from maturation chambers aboard a damaged cube.”

“I _wanted_ to make a deal with the Borg,” Katie continued, “but Chakotay thought it was too dangerous. It was one of the worst fights we’ve ever had. I only gave the order to retreat after he threatened to leave the ship and find a nice M-class planet to raise Xiomara on. He slept on the couch for almost two months before we patched things up.

“The course Tom plotted around Borg space added fifteen years to our projected journey home. But that was before we encountered the S’Valie. Awful people. All they care about is profit. They remind me of the Ferengi, but they’re much more technologically advanced.

“We traded them the Federation’s database on Dr. Soong’s work in exchange for a device that can fold Voyager through hundreds of light years of space. It takes a tremendous toll on our structural integrity, so we’ve only used it selectively, but it’s how we got past the Borg, the Krenim, and the Devore Imperium.”

There was another long pause during which they both thoughtfully sipped their soup.

“I hear Kes is still here,” said Kathryn, “she left my Voyager around the same time we collided with the Borg.”

“Yes,” said Katie. “She thought about leaving for a time, but Tom convinced her to stay. She’s quite elderly now. She’s a full-time teacher these days.”

“Which reminds me, how many children do you have onboard?” Kathryn asked.

“Twenty three,” said Katie. “The crew seemed to take Chakotay and my relationship as permission to pair off and have children of their own. Tom and Kes have a son. Harry and Jenny Delaney have a daughter and another on the way. B’Elanna and Joe Carey just had their second six months ago. And Neelix and Sam Wildman just announced that they're expecting as well.”

“B’Elanna and Joe Carey!” Kathryn exclaimed. “Didn’t she break his nose?”

“They patched things up,” Katie said simply.

The comm chirped and an aged, crackling voice came through. “Kes to Janeway.”

They tapped their comm badges at the same time, “Janeway here.”

“Captain, please come see me when you have a chance.”

==

“We’ve detected a high concentration of chroniton particles in transporter room two,” Seven of Nine explained to the senior staff assembled in the briefing room.

“At first, we thought it might have been the result of someone tampering with the transporters,” continued B’Elanna. “But then I remembered Icheb’s experiment.”

Icheb stood up, visibly shaken. “I’d programmed the transporters to beam a probe into subspace to scan for temporal eddies,” he explained. “I thought I’d successfully disengaged those protocols from the main transporter system, but it seems I made an error.”

“If we can beam another probe into subspace,” said Seven, placing a comforting hand on Icheb's shoulder, "we believe we can use it to scan for the Captain’s life signs. It is possible her pattern is still coherent and suspended in subspace. Or it’s possible she made the jump to another plane of existence. Whatever the case, if we can detect her pattern, we should be able to beam her back.”

“Use whatever resources you need,” said Chakotay.

==

“Come in,” came Kes’ ragged voice when Katie tapped the panel outside her quarters.

The two women entered the semi-darkened quarters. The elderly Ocampan sat in a recliner looking out the window at the star field.

“Hello Captain. Kathryn,” she said, inclining her head to each of the women in turn.

“Kes,” said Kathryn, coming to sit on the ottoman beside her and taking her withered hand, “it’s so good to see you.”

“And you, Kathryn,” she said, squeezing her hand and smiling up at her with rheumy eyes. "It’s been awhile.”

Kathryn looked up to Katie, confusion knitted across her face before turning back to Kes.

“Kes,” she said gently, “how do you…”

“I left your ship about four years ago,” she said simply.

“Yes, but how do you…”

“I just know, Kathryn. For the past six months or so, the barriers of reality have begun to… soften. Tuvok tells me that I am perceiving what he calls ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations.’”

“It sounds hard to keep straight,” Kathryn replied.

“It is becoming increasingly so,” said Kes. “For example, I know that in your timeline, my telepathic contact with Species 8472 caused changes in my neurobiology that made it impossible for me to remain in phase with normal space. I know that the years that followed were full of pain and confusion. But I also know that Neelix and I had a baby and that shortly after we met the Krenim, I died.”

She trailed off for a moment before continuing, “but I think that wasn’t with either of you. That was with a different Kathryn Janeway.”

“Kes,” Katie interjected, “you said you had something to tell us.”

“Oh yes,” replied Kes, struggling to her feet with Kathryn’s help. “I get so absentminded these days. Please forgive me.”

She walked slowly, with the help of an elegant wooden cane, into the darkened portion of her quarters. The lights came up slowly to reveal a huge weaving loom, upon which an exquisite but unfinished tapestry hung, full of flowing, colorful lines and inset with tiny beads that twinkled like gems even in the low light.

“On Ocampa, towards the end of a person’s life, we weave a tapestry illustrating our story as an artifact for future generations. As my awareness of the multiverse has increased, I’ve found the artistic possibilities intriguing.”

She took the shuttle and pointed it to the place where the the flowing, abstract patterns came to an abrupt stop - the warp strands still barren of their weft counterparts.

“Here,” she said, “is where something is broken.”

==

“Seven of Nine to Commander Chakotay.”

Chakotay strained to push the heavy barbell up and back onto its stand before answering. “Chakotay here.”

“We’re ready to beam the probe into subspace, Commander.”

“I’m on my way, Seven. Chakotay out,” he said, mopping his face and tapping his comm badge once again.

“Computer, end program.”

The boxing gym faded to reveal the network of grey holo-emitters.

Chakotay took a deep, steadying breath. He’d been through plenty of missions where Kathryn had been in danger and he’d managed to compartmentalize his feelings as always. But the idea that she could be gone, really gone, was proving very hard for him to swallow.

In front of the crew, he’d been able to keep up a veneer of composed confidence. His official word on the matter was that they were going to find her and all would be well. He wished he felt as confident as he sounded.

Unbidden, his mind wandered back to the last dinner they’d had together, where he’d told her that Seven of Nine had asked him on a date and that he’d said yes. Kathryn had taken it extremely well. She was gracious and supportive. If she’d felt any pain about him seeing someone else, she hadn’t telegraphed it to him.

He took another deep breath and shook his head to clear it. He couldn’t be thinking about this right now.

He left the Holodeck and headed for Astrometrics.

==

“How is it broken, Kes?” Katie asked, coming to look more closely at the spot on the tapestry that Kes had indicated.

“It’s almost as if someone has sliced through the fabric of space time with a laser scalpel,” said Kes. “Where there should be clean, flowing lines, there’s a huge rift. That’s where you came through, Kathryn.”

“Do you know if there’s a way to send me back the way I came?” Kathryn asked.

“No,” replied Kes, “but I do know that the longer you stay here, the more tangled up the threads will get. It’s not safe for you to stay here. It’s imperative that we return you to your timeline.”

“You’ll get no argument out of me,” said Kathryn.

“Kes,” said Katie, “can you work with B’Elanna to see if you can identify what that ‘laser scalpel’ is and what kind of rift it left?”

“Of course, Captain. I’ll be happy to help.” She tapped her comm badge, “Computer, lock onto my signal and initiate a site-to-site transport to Engineering.”

As the elderly Ocampan dematerialized, she looked directly at Kathryn. In that instant, Kathryn could have sworn that her eyes flashed with a kind of menace she’d only ever seen from Kes during the incident a year ago where she’d returned to Voyager, full of misplaced vitriol towards her former crewmates, in an attempt to rewrite her own history.

Shivers ran up and down her spine. At first, she thought it was the memory of the aged and enraged Kes that had chilled her so, but then the shivers intensified.

“Kathryn!” called Katie.

Kathryn looked down at her hands. They were shimmering before her as if she were in the beginning stages of being transported somewhere - but this didn’t feel like any transport she’d experienced before. The shivers running up and down her body began to intensify until they felt like flames licking at her flesh.

She started to scream.

==

“Abort transport!” ordered Chakotay.

Seven’s hands danced across the console in Transporter Room 2 and the flickering form of Kathryn Janeway, once barely visible on the transporter pad twisting in agony, vanished.

“What happened?” he demanded of Seven.

“It appears that the Captain has become lodged in subspace,” Seven replied, her brows knitted in consternation as she tried to make sense of her readings. “But I don’t understand what’s keeping her there.”

“Damn!” Chakotay said, banging his hand down on the console in frustration.

===

Kathryn regained consciousness in Sickbay. The lights were dim and soft ocarina music was playing. This was Chakotay’s music. A favorite of his from a night they’d spent sailing on Lake Atitlan many years ago.

She tried to open her eyes and found that she had a screaming headache.

“Kathryn?” came a familiar voice.

“Chakotay?” she said weakly, and felt a pair of hands take hers, one smooth, one scarred and deformed.

“How long?” she asked.

“Eleven hours, forty seven minutes,” he replied. “We were beginning to worry you weren’t coming back.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“Near as B’Elanna can tell, someone tried to beam you off the ship. The transporter signature was identical to Voyager’s. It seems like your people are trying to bring you home.”

“Well they certainly get points for effort,” she said, chuckling a little and then gasping at the pain that wracked her body.

Chakotay’s voice took on a note of deeper concern. “You’re in pain, Kathryn,” he said. “I’ll get the Doctor to prepare an analgesic.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll be alright. Stay with me for a little while.”

He sat on a stool next to the bio bed and took her hand in his again. As she knew she always could, she drew strength from his stalwart presence.

“Can I ask you something?” he said at long last.

“Sure,” she responded.

“Do you really believe your Chakotay is doing just fine?”

She was quiet for a moment before answering, “he certainly seems to be. He’s met a lovely young woman. I’m happy for them.”

“You forget who you’re talking to, Kathryn.”

“Well I’m trying to be happy for them anyway,” she replied. “I want him to find happiness and I can’t give him the kind of relationship he deserves. I know you and Katie have managed to make it work and I must admit that it’s better than I imagined it might be. But it’s still not the Starfleet way.”

“And you’re a Starfleet woman,” Chakotay said. “Through and through.”

“That’s right,” she replied through gritted teeth.

“That’s your choice and I respect it, Kathryn,” he said. “But you should know, he’s not okay.”

“How can you know that?”

“Within six months of meeting her, I knew Katie was the love of my life. Before New Earth, before Adrix.”

He took at deep breath.

“As I understand it, we were the same people right up until those peace negotiations. Knowing what I know about how things panned out after that, I can tell you that I’d choose this timeline over yours any day. The torture, losing my finger, all of it. I’m glad to live with it because Katie and Xiomara are my life.

“Your Chakotay may be making do. He may have met other women who interest him. But he’ll be in love with you for the rest of his life. Do with that what you will.”

She was quiet for a long time before she squeezed his hand.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said. “I think I’ll take that analgesic now.”

—

Tuvok strode into main engineering in his meditation robe. Kes’ call had sounded urgent enough that he didn’t feel it was necessary to bother changing. He found that his fellow officers had made the same calculation. Only bleary-eyed B’Elanna was in uniform. Both the Captain and Chakotay were in their pajamas.

“What have you discovered?” he asked.

B’Elanna gestured to a diagram on the screen. “We’ve detected what looks like the remains of a probe compressed into a layer of subspace. The probe has a kind of chroniton shielding that looks a lot like Krenim technology.

“Krenim?” asked Chakotay. “I thought we were way beyond their space.”

“We are,” said B’Elanna. “This probe has a Starfleet signature.”

“What’s it doing in subspace?” Katie asked.

“I don’t know,” answered Kes. “But this is the laser scalpel I mentioned.”

“Whoever put this probe here punched a hole through a layer of subspace we didn’t even know existed,” said B’Elanna.

“And beamed Kathryn right into our timeline,” finished Chakotay, looking at Katie.

“So how come they weren’t able to beam her out the way she came?” asked Katie.

“As best I can tell,” said B’Elanna, “the probe is entangled with the edges of the rift at a quantum level. It’s created what Lt. Paris would call a ‘one-way street.’”

“Is there a way to reverse the direction?” asked Katie.

“There very well could be,” said B’Elanna. “Theoretically, an inverse tachyon pulse similar to that used by the Enterprise during their most recent encounter with the Q could reverse the polarity of the rift, but it would have to be initiated from the probe’s origin point.”

“Which is in the other timeline,” said Katie. “And we have no way of communicating with them.”

Kes spoke up. “Captain, with your permission, I would like to see if I can reach the Voyager on other side of that rift. If we can collaborate with them, we might be able to get Kathryn home.”

“How do you suggest we do that?” asked Katie.

“If Tuvok will agree to mind meld with me, I think I may be able to reach him in the other timeline,” replied Kes.

Katie looked at Tuvok, “what do you think?”

“If Kes’ recent leaps in multi-spacial awareness are any indication, it seems worthy of an attempt."

==

Lt. Commander Tuvok was having a hard time focusing on his meditations tonight. His concern for Captain Janeway’s well-being was of course at the forefront of his mind, but his mental discipline would normally have been able to compartmentalize such emotional sensations.

But something was different tonight.

“Your mind to my mind,” he heard his voice echo from somewhere far away. “Your thoughts to my thoughts.”

And then his head was splitting open and he heard a voice he had not heard in many years.

“Tuvok,” said Kes. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay in contact with you so please just listen. I’m from another timeline. Your Captain Janeway is here with us. We know you tried to beam her back through the rift your probe created in subspace, but it didn’t work because there’s a quantum entanglement between the debris from the probe and the edges of the rift it created in subspace. We need you to initiate an inverse tachyon pulse and aim it at the subspace rift. That should reverse the polarity of the entanglement long enough for us to send her back.”

Tuvok’s nose began to bleed.

“Understood, Kes. It is… it is…”

He blacked out.

—

“Chakotay to Tuvok.”

Tuvok’s head felt like it was twice its normal size and stuffed with cotton. The dull ache that suffused his entire body sharpened to intense pain when he moved.

“Chakotay to Tuvok, are you alright Lieutenant?”

He tapped his comm badge. “I am alive, Commander.”

“You’re late for your duty shift,” said Chakotay. “Sounds like maybe you’re ill. Should I send the Doctor to your quarters?”

“That won’t be necessary, Commander,” replied Tuvok, rising with great effort. “I believe I may have a solution to our current dilemma. Please meet me in engineering.”

—

“It’s just crazy enough to work,” said B’Elanna, looking over Tuvok’s proposal.

“Crazy is irrelevant, Lieutenant,” Seven said. “The quantum mechanics are sound.”

“And you say you got this from Kes?” Chakotay asked Tuvok, still a little skeptical.

“It would appear that in the timeline where Captain Janeway is currently trapped, Kes is still aboard Voyager,” said Tuvok.

“Let’s give it a shot,” said Chakotay before turning to B’Elanna. “How long will it take you to set up the pulse?”

“I’ll need to reconfigure the main deflector,” she replied. “Nine hours?”

“Do it,” replied Chakotay.

===

“Mind melds,” the Doctor muttered to himself as he checked Tuvok and Kes’ bio-bed readouts. Both of them were still unconscious nearly nine hours after their attempt to make telepathic contact with the other timeline. There was no way of knowing if it had even worked.

He turned to look in on his other patient and found that she was beginning to awaken.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

Kathryn Janeway croaked out an answer, “I’m still in a great deal of pain,” she said. “Why is that?”

“Your crew’s attempt to transport you pulled you further out of phase with this space-time continuum,” he said. “Your discomfort is to be expected. I can prepare another analgesic if you…”

She began to scream again as what he could only assume was another attempt at transport by her crew seized her body. She writhed in the beam, but after a few agonizing seconds it dispersed and she lay back gasping for oxygen on the bio bed. Shards of light sped up and down her body. Periodically, they would jut off at odd angles. Each time this happened, she screamed again.

The Doctor lowered the surgical console and looked at his readings before administering another analgesic. Her form went still, but the lines of energy crossing her body continued to accelerate.

“Commander Chakotay, please report to Sickbay at once and bring Lt. Torres with you. Kathryn Janeway is… she’s dying.”

He turned to pick up another hypospray and found Kes standing between him and the instrument tray.

Kes stepped around him and put her hands on either side of Kathryn Janeway’s head.

—

“Kathryn, can you hear me?”

“Kes?”

They were standing in a room too brightly illuminated for Kathryn to see easily. Her entire body was thrumming with energy.

“Yes. We don’t have much time. You have to come with me now.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home,” replied Kes. “Your home anyway.”

“But Kes, you belong here.”

“That’s less straightforward than you would imagine,” chuckled Kes. “But it doesn’t matter. Four years ago, you risked your life to save mine after I wandered into that shrine on the Nechani homeworld. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” replied Kathryn, “but what does that have to do with…”

“You’ve saved my life more times than I can count, Kathryn,” replied Kes with a beatific smile. “This is my gift to you.”

===

“Mister Neelix, I believe I have been sufficiently fussed over,” Tuvok said, sitting up on his bio bed and attempting to stand while the nervous Talaxian fluttered over him.

“In this case, I concur with Mr. Neelix’s assessment,” replied the Doctor, striding over to Tuvok with a hypospray. “I must insist that you remain here for observation for a few more hours. You’ve just been the recipient of the first trans-multiverse mind meld and we simply don’t know what the effects…”

He trailed off as a blinding light shone forth from the surgical bay.

As the light died down, Neelix and the Doctor walked quickly across Sickbay to find Kathryn Janeway lying on the surgical bed, unconscious, but whole and alive. Standing at her head was Kes.

She looked at the Doctor, then at Neelix, smiled from the depths of her heart, and vanished.

—

**Several days later**

“Come,” said Kathryn Janeway as she opened a bottle of Bolian nectar.

Chakotay entered carrying a loaf of crusty bread.

"I baked it myself,” he said, setting it down on the table.

“That will go perfectly with the stew,” she replied, tapping a few commands on the replicator.

Within a few minutes, they were eating and chatting companionably about the day’s events.

“Sounds like Lt. Paris’ new holo-creation is going to be quite the diversion,” said Janeway with a smile.

“The water gardens of Issus Prime,” said Chakotay, “four acres of lush jungle interspersed with waterslides, zip lines, and underwater caverns. I could have sworn I overheard Tom saying something to Harry about mermaids.”

“Sounds like paradise,” said Janeway.

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes before Chakotay spoke up. “You said there was something in particular you wanted to discuss.”

“Yes,” she said, “I haven’t shared a lot of details about the other timeline with the rest of the crew but I wanted you to know that…” she took a breath and a sip of nectar. “In that timeline, we were married and we had a daughter. Her name was Xiomara.”

Chakotay was speechless for a moment, but then he grinned. “I've always loved that name.”

“It seems that, not long after we returned from New Earth, we agreed to negotiate a peace treaty between two warring species. During the course of the negotiations, you were kidnapped and tortured by a separatist faction and I… I rescued you.”

“My hero,” he said, still grinning. “So how was the ship?”

“What do you mean?”

“How was the ship? Was she in tatters? Did the crew go about in sackcloth and ashes?”

“Very funny,” she said. “No. Things were fine. Better than fine. We were just as much a family there as we are here. More so, if you count the twenty three children onboard.”

“Twenty three?!?” he exclaimed. “Sounds like some people were busy.”

She nodded and blushed a little. “It took me a minute to wrap my brain around how we… how they work together,” she said. “When he disagrees with her command decisions, they compromise.”

“Is that so different from the way we do things now?” he asked.

She paused for a moment, thinking back over their last several disagreements.

“Come to think of it, no,” she said with a wry chuckle. “You’re very much my partner in running this ship.”

A silence ensued, in which each of them sipped their nectar and planned their next move delicately before they both spoke simultaneously.

“You go ahead, Chakotay,” she said graciously.

“No, please.”

“The alternate Chakotay told me something I hadn’t understood up until then. He told me that… that while there might be other women who interested you, I would always be the love of your life. Is that… is that accurate?”

Chakotay grinned, looked up at her, and laid his cards on the table. “I knew I was in love with you practically from the moment I met you,” he said. “I’d never felt that way about anyone before and I’ve never felt that way about anyone since. I don’t think I ever will. That’s just not how I’m wired.”

“Good,” she said simply.

She stood and came around the table. “I’ve been shortsighted,” she said, tears starting to form in her eyes. “We are in extenuating circumstances out here and I thought that by holding fast to Starfleet protocol, I’d be able to impose some control on the chaos. But having seen what I’ve seen, knowing that we can function together as a command team and as partners I… I’m ready to give this a real shot if you are.”

He stood to meet her and took her hands in his.

“It’s about damn time,” he said, and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> For the full story of Kathryn's daring rescue, please read [All the Stars We Saw](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21079109).


End file.
